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Tuesday May 13 2015 DAY 67 SOUTH LAKE TAHOE
Wednesday May 13 2015 South Lake Tahoe DAY
Another night of blogging without the internet. I am at a new location now. My cousin Paulette lives in Folsom California which is about an hour from my last stay. Yesterday was a marvelous day. Just the drive to Celio Ranch would have made the trip worth the trip to Meyers CA. In the morning we had a leisurely breakfast at a local family restaurant and enjoying our hosts, Chris and Tom Celio. I was up at 5:00 a.m. so I could be ready for the sunrise to hit the mountain peaks out back. Well, it didn’t come up until after 6:00 a.m. But my sleep was gone and boy am I feeling it now.
No internet available tonight due to the fact that I forgot to ask Paulette for the pass code. So this may get posted tomorrow as Paulette is sleeping.
Becky and I drove up to Lake Tahoe after we left Chris and Tom’s place. Again, my memory had failed me. It was not like I remembered when we used to go visit my sister in Tahoe. Of course it seemed more crowded because the population is more crowded, but it also seemed sort of run down and bedraggled. It made me wonder if the tourist trade there has gone down, especially with the lake being so low. I took some photos but don’t know how well you can see the receding waterline. Perhaps just the building were aging or for that matter, just me aging. I think I see things so much differently than I did as a kid. I see things more clearly.
The lake seemed to rest in quiet repose as if the lake was in a resting time, tired and listless.. The colors of the water graduated to different color intensities as you looked further and further away from the shore. Brown sand seemed austere and agressive as if it were on a quest reclaiming the depths of the lake. A sadness came over me as I realized how low the water was in the lake. It is May and there is barely any snow on any mountain. This should be the time of spring thaw. The streams down below the mountains are running shallow and slow. Very little water trickling from melting snow as there isn’t much left to melt. This should be the time of white rapids. I heard that there may be about a foot of snow expected tonight. If today’s temperature is any indication I believe it could happen. It was freezing at the Ranch today as we took a tour of all the outbuildings and surrounding acres. Very cold!
I’ll post photos of the lake. The lake still has a gentle beauty about it, but to me it seems old and tired; worn out from combatting four years of drought. California is in need of moisture. I was actually relieved as we left the mountain tops. Everything seems so dry and powdery brittle that I was concerned about what it would be like to be caught in a fire storm there. I pray for God’s protection over California’s dry lands and forests. I prayed for rain and snow.
Arrived back at Becky’s by 5:00 and gone by 6:38 p.m. to my next destination.
And here I am at cousin Paulette’s house in Folsom California. I can tell that Paulette is tired and run down. She has a lot on her plate right now. She works in a family owned business and must be away quite a bit. She also is dealing with an ill family member and this is causing added responsibility to her already busy life. And then, here I come! I hope I can help her in some way while I am here. Maybe just taking her mind off of all else that is going on. Not much happened tonight except my laundry duty was accomplished and my writing this blog to be posted on Thursday. And it is another short blog due to my sleep schedule. It is not that I don’t have lots to write about, but my body is in need of sleep again. I hope no one calls me in the morning as I plan to sleep in! Brilliant idea! I’ll shut down my phone.
I hope to have this blog published tomorrow after I have the WiFi code. Good night! 11:56 p.m.
Tuesday May 12, 2015 Day 66 ON THE WAY TO SOUTH LAKE TAHOE
Well, I’ll see how I can make today’s blog, May 12, 2015 work, while I am out of the SERVICE area where I am writing. I am close to South Lake Tahoe. Actually tonight I am staying on the CELIO-RANCH close to the town of Meyers. It is a place that is so beautiful that I can hardly bear not to be outside enjoying all the sights, the fresh air, the freezing wind, the rustling sound of the huge trees, the seemingly abandoned little two lane highway, which is South Upper Truckee Road. The only reason I’m not outside is the freezing wind. I had to come back in to thaw out.
How is it I meet so many wonderful people and have such awesome experiences? Yesterday Rebecca (my friend who lives in Elk Grove, right outside of Sacramento proper) drove me to Placerville to be with her family and look at houses. On the trip back from Placerville I simply stated how I wished I could have gone to Lake Tahoe on this trip. Not in a million years thinking that it would take place. She SIMPLY said (if you knew Rebecca you would know she never says anything simply) in her exuberance and dramatic way “We can go to Tahoe”. And here we are, well… almost. She has friends who live on a ranch at a little unincorporated community called Meyers with an elevation of about 6500 feet. The summit is about 9,000 feet.
Tom and Chris own CELIO-RANCH and have a heart as big, or bigger, than the ranch. Their home is always open to family and friends. And Rebecca got to drag me along! How Awesome is that! We plan to spend the night in their 101 year old home, and then drive around Lake Tahoe tomorrow (great photo ops!) and drive the long way home. We have come just because we could. A new place to explore, new people to meet, new experiences to put in my memory bank. When I think my bank is almost full it seems there is always just enough room for one more experience. I just love life!
I tried to download some of the photos of the ranch that I took right after arriving but there is no service. I am typing this blog on a Word Document and will save it and upload it later. Just to be on the safe side I just saved it and will continue to do so as I type.
Just called my husband on a borrowed phone. Without a booster nothing works. Our phone call is our daily connection. I am so thankful for the generosity of Tamara who lives here at Celio-Ranch for the use of her IPhone. Tamara is a student learning ultra sound and lives with Tom and Chris during the week while she does her studies and goes home on weekends. I asked Tamara what her wisdom of 23 years would be. Here it is:
“Help and love people and the greatest of these is love. I think if more people did that and loved God we would live in a better world”.
I just love the wisdom of the young! We are told in the scriptures to”get knowledge and seek wisdom”. It appears she is doing both.
The following is taken from the web to give you a little insight to the history of Meyers California:
“Meyers (also Yanks, Yank’s Station, and Tahoe Paradise)[3] is a small unincorporated community in El Dorado County,California, United States,[1] along U.S. Route 50 in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains south of South Lake Tahoe in the Lake Tahoe area. It lies at an elevation of 6352 feet (1936 m). Established in 1851, Meyers started out as a stagecoach stop, trading post and Pony Express station.[1] The town is now registered as California Historical Landmark #708.[2] It serves as a Martin Smith was the town’s founder; he opened a trading post and inn on the Placerville-Carson Road in 1851 [3] In 1859, Ephraim “Yank” Clement and his wife Lydia purchased the station and outbuildings from George Douglas and Martin Smith, who had run the station as a hostelry and stagecoach stop.
The Clements enlarged the station into a three-story, fourteen-room way station which included a large stable and hay barn with large corrals across the road.[3][4] The station served as a Pony Express stop up until October 26, 1861. Upon completion of the wagon road over Kingsberry Grade, the Pony Express route continued along the south shore of Lake Tahoe stopping at Yank’s Station Toll House, near Myers (original spelling) on U.S. 50. Warren Upson was the first Pony Express rider to arrive here on April 28, 1860. The station also served as a stage stop with a trading post and hotel. The toll house was pushed off its foundation by flood waters and is currently located on blocks adjacent to the Tahoe Paradise Museum. In 1873 George Henry Dudley Meyers bought the property. Business flourished at the newly rebuilt station for decades; it continued to serve as a hotel and store until November 25, 1938, when the building was destroyed by fire during the Meyers town fire. A post office opened in 1904 south of the station.[3] The post office closed in 1957, and reopened in 1958.[3] It was renamed Tahoe Paradise in 1962.[3] Since then, houses have been built sporadically in the meandering neighborhoods that surround it.popular stop on the way into and out of the Tahoe Basin for travelers on Highways 50 and 89.”
I hope the inserts that I have been adding from the web are interesting to you. I try to learn about the area I am visiting and thought you might want to know some of the facts.
It is only 7:43 p.m. and I am finished blogging for the evening. I am trying to condense my words and thus my time. Don’t worry, some days I will still be a bit wordy. I will get this posted ASAP.
Good night
P.S. Google Celio-Ranch and some interesting sites come up. You can even see a picture of Tom and Chris. Here is an interesting address I looked up
Visions of Poetry 